I went on “Judging Freedom” today to discuss the many dark legacies of 9/11. This video is especially worth watching for Judge Napolitano’s summary of the PATRIOT Act and how it degraded our fourth amendment protections under the U.S. Constitution. Unlike him, I have not read all of the PATRIOT Act.
I had many thoughts both before and after my interview with the Judge. Perhaps the most disturbing to me is the sense of how much my country has embraced war as a creative act, as a force for good, as equivalent to freedom. Hence names like “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and “Operation Enduring Freedom” for the Iraqi and Afghan Wars. Barack Obama had his “good” war (Afghanistan) and his “bad” one (Iraq), even as Hillary Clinton chortled and gloated over the death of Gaddafi in Libya when she was Obama’s Secretary of State.
There was a time when Americans saw war as corruption—as the most insidious threat to democracy (James Madison), as brutal, stupid, and often futile (General Dwight D. Eisenhower). Ever since 9/11, if not before, too many Americans (especially those who don’t have to fight) have come to embrace war as positive, even “good.” This is among the most worrisome signs of creeping fascism—the identification of war with freedom, with patriotism, openly adopted and supported by both political parties in America.
Militarized madness, if left uncorrected and unopposed, will destroy freedom and liberty.
The Judge and I also briefly discussed Islamophobia and the death toll in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. The harsh reality of hundreds of thousands killed, and millions displaced, during the War on Terror is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media here, and usually goes unacknowledged in 9/11 memorial ceremonies.
I know: this is old news. But I was going through my notes from September of 2024 on the Harris/Trump presidential debate and came across Kamala Harris’s gushing praise of the “late great John McCain,” American hero. And I thought again to myself: this is how the Democrats run for office, by praising Republican warmongers like McCain?
I get it: Harris was trying to rattle Trump, who had no love of McCain. But as I wrote in my notes at the time, Harris came across as a moderate Republican against a madcap one in Trump. And when you offer voters a “choice” between a moderate rightist and a more extreme one, they tend to go for the extreme one.
A few reasons why Harris struck me as a moderate Republican in that debate:
Her high praise for McCain.
Her tight embrace of military lethality.
Her rejection of Medicare for All and her support for private health insurers.
Her willingness to quote Goldman Sachs with approval.
Her boasting of personal endorsements from Dick and Liz Cheney.
Her strong support of NATO and Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Her unchecked support for Israel despite the genocide in Gaza.
My Democrat friends will likely respond that she was “moving to the center” to win more votes. How did that work out for her?
Yes, I know Kamala wasn’t as crazy as Trump. If she’d been elected in 2024, we wouldn’t have been subjected to the DOGE, or absurdly high tariffs, or ICE goons, or the idiocy of Pete Hegseth. I get that.
But Harris did support “military lethality,” so the Pentagon budget would have increased (though not nearly as much as under Trump). She said Iran was America’s greatest threat, so her foreign policy vis-a-vis that country may have been as bellicose (though whether she would have started a disastrous and illegal war with Iran is unknowable but I think unlikely).
Looking through my old notes from that debate, I’m struck again by the grim vision Trump offered of America. Our country has gone to hell, he said. The nation is in decline, or dying. Other countries are laughing at us, Trump said. They don’t respect us. Migrant crime is killing America. Immigrants are eating your pet dogs and cats. Babies are being aborted (“executed”) at nine months. Biden doesn’t know he’s alive and Harris hates Israel. Or so Trump claimed.
Trump wasn’t wrong about America’s decline. What he fails to see is how rapidly he has accelerated that decline since he was reelected in 2024.
Trump is America’s first declinist president, as Tom Engelhardt has noted. Hence the whole MAGA ideal of a national revival, which resonated with so many people. The problem of course is how Trump is worsening that decline even as he uses the office of the presidency to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies.
It shouldn’t be that difficult for Democrats to beat a corrupt and venal blowhard like Trump, except the Democratic establishment thinks the way to do that is to praise John McCain and to hug the Cheneys. And even while Democrats today criticize Trump for the Iran War, they rarely do so on moral terms, even as they typically put forth their own preferred military action plan against Russia or China or both. Trump actually makes occasional antiwar noises, which is more than can be said for many Democrats.
If Democrats really want to gain the upper hand on Trump, they had best stop praising the McCains and Cheneys of America and reject constant warmongering. And they should be much stronger in their criticism of Trump and Company as WMD, as weapons of mass destruction to democracy, for that is exactly what they are proving to be.
The DSA candidates in 2026 get it: American voters really want alternatives rather than Democrats wearing John McCain and Liz Cheney masks.
A Seven-Point Plan to Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War
AUG 25, 2026
If Stephen Covey can make millions off the “7 habits of highly effective people,” surely I can make millions off a seven-point plan to reduce the risk of nuclear Armageddon.
Seriously, I recently came up with seven ideas to reduce the risk of nuclear war, and then I used the amazing power of ChatGPT to turn those seven ideas into a policy platform statement (see below). It did a fair job of it, though the prose is a bit boring.
I believe my seven-point plan would make the world a safer place. It would save America trillions of dollars through the cancellation of the Sentinel ICBM, the B-21 bomber, and the Golden Dome missile shield.
Here’s my simple seven-point plan of highly effective Americans:
1. A U.S. policy of no first use of nuclear weapons.
2. A commitment to global START talks to make major reductions to nuclear weapons arsenals, with the eventual goal (if possible) of total nuclear disarmament.
3. The end of Golden Dome and a revival of the ABM treaty.
4. Reconfiguration of the U.S. nuclear triad. Cancellation of the Sentinel ICBM and the B-21 Raider. Gradual retirement of Minuteman III ICBMs. U.S. nuclear deterrence to be centered on the most survivable leg of the triad: the Navy’s Ohio– and Columbia-class submarines.
5. Job loss associated with the cancellation of major nuclear weapons systems to be alleviated through investment in civilian infrastructure (roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and the like).
6. Major educational efforts to alert the world to the dangers of nuclear winter, weapons, and war.
7. An end to the Russia-Ukraine War and the alleviation of tensions between the U.S./NATO and Russia. Similarly, a reduction in tensions around similar potential nuclear flashpoints (e.g. the U.S./Taiwan versus China).
This devastating scene from “Terminator 2” must always remain science fiction.
*****
And here’s the policy statement generated using ChatGPT to flesh out that plan.
The continued existence of nuclear weapons remains the gravest threat to the survival of modern civilization. Although the Cold War ended more than thirty years ago, approximately 12,000 nuclear warheads remain in the arsenals of the world’s nuclear powers, with the overwhelming majority held by the United States and Russia (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute [SIPRI], 2025). At the same time, deteriorating arms control agreements, renewed great-power competition, and regional conflicts have increased the risk that nuclear weapons could again become instruments of war. The objective of U.S. nuclear policy should therefore be clear: maintain strategic stability while steadily reducing the probability that nuclear weapons are ever used. This platform advances seven mutually reinforcing initiatives designed to move the United States and the international community toward a safer and more secure world.
The first pillar of this platform is the adoption of a No First Use policy. The United States should formally declare that it will never initiate the use of nuclear weapons and will employ them only in retaliation against a nuclear attack. Such a declaration would reduce the danger of miscalculation during international crises and lessen the incentives for adversaries to launch their own weapons out of fear of a preemptive American strike. A No First Use doctrine would also strengthen the long-standing principle that nuclear weapons exist solely to deter nuclear aggression rather than to serve as instruments of battlefield warfare or coercive diplomacy. By embracing this doctrine, the United States would signal that nuclear weapons are political weapons of last resort, not usable military tools. Such leadership could encourage reciprocal restraint by other nuclear powers and reinforce global norms against nuclear use.
Second, the United States should recommit itself to comprehensive strategic arms control negotiations. Building upon the achievements of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) process and the New START Treaty, Washington should seek substantial bilateral reductions with Russia while laying the groundwork for future multilateral negotiations involving China, France, the United Kingdom, and other nuclear-armed states. The long-term objective should remain the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons if rigorous verification mechanisms and international security conditions make that goal achievable. Although complete nuclear disarmament cannot occur overnight, history demonstrates that negotiated reductions are possible. Since the late 1980s, U.S. and Russian arsenals have declined dramatically through verified agreements without undermining either nation’s security (U.S. Department of State, 2024). Renewed arms control would reduce costs, increase transparency, and decrease the likelihood of nuclear confrontation.
Third, the United States should discontinue pursuit of the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system and instead seek negotiations leading to renewed limitations on nationwide strategic missile defenses comparable to those established under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Strategic stability has historically depended upon the recognition that neither side can realistically expect to escape devastating retaliation following a nuclear attack. Large-scale missile defense systems risk undermining this stability by encouraging competitors to expand or modernize their offensive arsenals to overcome perceived defensive advantages. The result is an action-reaction cycle that fuels expensive arms races without improving long-term security. Reviving mutual constraints on strategic missile defenses would restore an important principle of Cold War arms control: that deterrence is strengthened when neither nation believes it can successfully fight and win a nuclear war.
Fourth, the United States should restructure its nuclear forces to emphasize the most survivable component of its deterrent. This platform therefore supports cancellation of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program and the B-21 Raider nuclear bomber while gradually retiring the aging Minuteman III ICBM force. America’s nuclear deterrent should instead rest primarily upon the Navy’s Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines and their Columbia-class successors. Because ballistic missile submarines are exceptionally difficult to detect and destroy, they provide a secure second-strike capability that guarantees retaliation against any nuclear aggressor. Maintaining a credible submarine-based deterrent would preserve strategic stability while eliminating the unique dangers posed by land-based missiles, which must remain on constant alert and may create pressure for rapid launch decisions during crises. A submarine-centered deterrent would continue to protect the United States while reducing the risks associated with hair-trigger nuclear postures.
Fifth, reductions in nuclear weapons programs should be accompanied by a robust economic transition strategy for affected workers and communities. Defense conversion should not leave engineers, skilled tradespeople, or manufacturing workers unemployed. Instead, federal investment should redirect this highly skilled workforce toward rebuilding America’s civilian infrastructure. Roads, bridges, water systems, electrical grids, schools, hospitals, public transportation, and renewable energy facilities all require substantial modernization. Redirecting resources from unnecessary nuclear modernization programs toward infrastructure would strengthen both national prosperity and national resilience while ensuring that communities dependent upon defense spending continue to enjoy stable employment opportunities. National security should be understood not only in military terms but also in terms of economic strength and public well-being.
Sixth, the United States should undertake a major educational initiative concerning the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. During the Cold War, public awareness of nuclear dangers contributed significantly to support for arms control agreements. Today, however, much of that awareness has faded. Educational programs in schools, universities, museums, and public media should explain the immediate effects of nuclear explosions as well as the broader environmental consequences identified by contemporary scientific research. Studies indicate that even a limited regional nuclear conflict could inject sufficient soot into the upper atmosphere to reduce global temperatures, disrupt agriculture, and threaten food supplies for billions of people (Robock et al., 2007; Xia et al., 2022). Greater public understanding of these consequences would encourage informed democratic debate and reinforce international efforts to prevent nuclear war.
Finally, this platform recognizes that arms control cannot succeed without diplomacy. The United States should actively pursue negotiated settlements that reduce tensions among the world’s major nuclear powers. Ending the Russia-Ukraine War through diplomacy consistent with international law and the sovereignty of states would substantially reduce the risk of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. Likewise, sustained dialogue with China should seek to reduce military tensions surrounding Taiwan and establish reliable crisis communication mechanisms that lessen the danger of accidental escalation. Military deterrence remains necessary, but deterrence alone cannot provide lasting peace. Stable diplomatic relationships, confidence-building measures, and regular communication among adversaries are indispensable components of nuclear risk reduction.
Taken together, these proposals offer a coherent strategy for reducing the likelihood of nuclear catastrophe while maintaining a credible national defense. They reject the assumption that greater security necessarily requires ever-expanding nuclear arsenals and instead affirm that diplomacy, strategic restraint, and international cooperation provide more durable foundations for peace. The nuclear age has demonstrated that humanity possesses the capacity to destroy itself. The challenge of the twenty-first century is to demonstrate that it also possesses the wisdom to prevent that outcome. This platform seeks to move the United States toward that safer future.
References
Robock, A., Oman, L., & Stenchikov, G. L. (2007). Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112(D13).
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2025). SIPRI Yearbook 2025: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security.
U.S. Department of State. (2024). New START Treaty.
Xia, L., Robock, A., Scherrer, K., et al. (2022). Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection. Nature Food, 3, 586–596.
If you’ve read this far, thank you! Let’s help rid the world of nuclear weapons, or at least greatly reduce global nuclear arsenals.
I know: politicians lie. Who knew? But the lies are so blatant, so fundamental (if that’s the right word), that it’s hard not to despair.
Consider Barack Obama. As a candidate he was a beacon of hope and change. He told Planned Parenthood that signing the Freedom of Choice Act would be the first thing he did as president. Once in office, he said it was not his highest legislative priority—and it never got done. He allied himself with neoliberals and Wall Street and bailed out the banks in a process begun by George W. Bush (remember the TARP?) even as millions of Americans defaulted on their home mortgages. In 2011 he offered little meaningful support to the Occupy Wall Street movement as the police in New York and other cities dismantled the encampments. He escalated the Afghan War (promise kept!) and became (according to the 2013 book Double Down) “really good at killing people” via Predator and Reaper drones. His health care plan was much like Romney care as he abandoned the public option. After he left the presidency, he cashed in big time through books, media deals, speaking fees and other ventures, with Forbes estimating his net worth at more than $70 million. (I got a fundraising letter from him last week asking me to send $25 to the DNC. Instead, he could donate a few million or sell his mansion on Martha’s Vineyard.)
Obama said he was the hope and change for Americans to believe in. He proved to be a very smooth con man.
Consider Donald Trump. He promised to put Americans first, to end wasteful wars, to take on the military-industrial complex, and to restore American “greatness.” Instead, he’s waging a costly and apparently losing war with Iran and he’s throwing buckets of mega billions at the Pentagon as he chops away at educational, Medicaid, food/SNAP, and other funds for the working classes. Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself and his family, showcasing a brazen greed that might make Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi blush. He’s a one-man wrecking crew for faith and trust in the government.
Trump said he was the man to make America great again. He’s proven to be an abrasive but nevertheless very successful con man.
Back in the Reagan days, we were told government was the problem not the solution, and that it had to be downsized radically (the Pentagon, of course, was exempt from downsizing). An untrustworthy and spendthrift federal government is most definitely a problem today as the U.S. national debt just soared past the $40 trillion mark.
And where does half of federal discretionary spending go today? To wars and weapons, to the Pentagon and Homeland Security, to more nukes and golden domes, together with more schemes to enrich Trump and his oligarch cronies. If that’s not bad enough, Trump is seeking $500 billion more for the Pentagon in FY2027. Remember he vowed to take on the military-industrial complex? He’s feeding it instead.
Betrayal. Small wonder that Americans are despondent as well as angry. And why perhaps so much effort is being exerted to redirect that anger away from the betrayers-in-chief and toward other “enemies.” Even “Marxist-communists” are back—the “enemy” that will not die, as if Marxists are pulling the strings and reaping the profits in Washington, DC. It’s laughably absurd.
“Throw the bums out!” is a mood in America today. But will new politicians actually have principles to serve working-class Americans? How do you reform a system where money basically equals speech and where lobbyists exert enormous power? Stay tuned as the great American experiment plays itself out.
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, often described as a prose-poem for its surprising brevity and deep meaning, is the most moving work of political discourse I’ve ever read. In that short speech, Lincoln captured the horrific nature of war and the terrible burdens of an American history built literally on the backs of slaves. In describing that great civil war, he did not mince words about its “mighty scourge,” nor on its connection to that so-called peculiar institution of slavery:
Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’
My dad’s old silver certificate featuring Abraham Lincoln
After that terrifyingly honest sentence, Lincoln then extended an olive branch to the defeated South and indeed to the entire nation:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
We should think of war as a scourge—the most sweeping and biting of whips, capable of inflicting the most horrendous of tortures to human flesh.
Lincoln’s speech is dated March 4, 1865. More than a century later, another politician of integrity would refer to the awful scourge of war: Tony Benn, a member of the British Parliament, here in 1998:
The words of Lincoln and Benn resonate with hard-won truths. How awful it is today that war is sold to us as noble and honorable and just, the province of warriors and warrior-states, as if that is something admirable.
U.S. leaders’ pride in military lethality and global prowess are sure signs of the death of reason and democracy in America.
U.S. presidents since Lyndon B. Johnson, if not before then (think here of Woodrow Wilson’s false promises in 1916 to keep America out of the Great War, known now as World War I), always promise peace, especially while running for office. Trump is the most recent example here. Yet whether Democrat or Republican, as soon as they become president, it’s war and more war. LBJ led America into the disastrous Vietnam War; Trump led America into the ongoing disaster of the Iran War; and the overseas wars just never seem to end, whether George W. Bush is issuing the orders or Barack Obama.
LBJ lacked the courage to resist the siren call of war
I had this thought as I re-read a comment from Mike Murry, a frequent Bracing Views contributor and an astute student of U.S. political and cultural history. Murry, a Vietnam War veteran, had this to say back in 2018:
Then, in the first semester of my senior hear in 1964, JFK’s successor as President: Lyndon Johnson, started his campaign for re-election, promising not to send us American boys to fight a war in Asia that Asian boys could fight themselves. He sounded just like Donald Trump did last year [January 2017], before assuming office. Johnson beat Goldwater in a landslide. The American people did not want another Korean War and made that overwhelmingly clear. But President Johnson betrayed us all, the way all U.S. Presidents now regularly do. Every one of them without exception preaches peace to win election. Then they invariably give their generals the wars that they demand. It happens every time. The stunning cynicism of that betrayal by President Johnson, I think, severed once and for all time any sense of “patriotism” that I might once have felt for the “America” of my youth. From that point on, I became an alien in my own land. My government would later send me abroad for the worst possible reasons, to do the most unnecessary and shameful of things. That same me never came home again. Someone else did. A damaged, but better man, I think. But much less an “American” one.
Today, the most important act to restore America is to end these needless and disastrous wars overseas. And not just overseas but here at home, as Trump promotes the malicious and mendacious notion of an enemy within, often labeled as the “radical left” with “terroristic” tendencies.
Nothing, I think, is more important to America’s health now and in the future than ending wars that waste so much, that kill and destroy so many, and that estrange our own citizen-soldiers from their country.
On a very warm and humid Sunday morning, here are a few random thoughts for today:
1. It’s rather amazing that the U.S./Israel War against Iran has entered its six month with no end in sight. Remember when the Trump administration suggested it would last no longer than eight weeks? The war is holding the world economy hostage, apparently for “greater Israel” and continued U.S. dominance of trade in fossil fuels. I say “apparently” because the war doesn’t make much sense to most Americans, who are in the main against it. The only selling point Trump keeps repeating is that Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, even as Israel is allowed to have up to 300 of them. His own intelligence chief told Trump that Iran was not working to field a nuclear weapon, but the Israelis told him otherwise, and we know who Trump is most obeisant toward.
2. Patrick Lawrence has a great piece on the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, and how they want to abolish ICE and possibly the presidency itself while defunding the police, the Pentagon, and other instruments of authority and coercion. One sympathizes, but it’s neither a practical nor a winning political message. So I wrote this comment at his site:
Echoing George McGovern, “Come home, America.” You can’t abolish or dismantle everything. But we can downsize the imperium and reinvest in America rather than “investing” in more wars and Zionist Israel.
If the DSA wants to make a contribution, it should focus on that — downsizing the empire, putting the American people first, rather than dreaming of abolishing everything. For what will replace it?
Make the lives of average Americans better, more affordable, more livable. Clean up our environment. And forget the magical thinking and empty posturing.
Come home, America. Come home from wanton, wasteful, and immoral wars.
3. I was breezing through “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce and stumbled on his acerbic definition of “Aborigines”:
1. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
2. Considerate persons who will not trouble the lexicographer of the future to describe them.
Bierce, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War, didn’t mince words here. There are always “persons of little worth” to oppressors who’d prefer that they leave or die. What was true of aboriginal peoples of the 19th and early 20th centuries is true of the Palestinians today: they are seen as obstacles to be overcome, even as terrorists to be exterminated.
4. Antiwar forces in America remain fragmented, and that’s partly by design. To oversimplify, you have the so-called radical left, which is antiwar, sometimes anti-military, often as critical of America as it is of empire, versus the “unpatriotic” (to Trump) right, which is anti-dumb wars, generally pro-military, and animated by putting “America first.” Left and right have much in common: they want less war, less militarism, and more investment and support for Main Street USA. If they could combine, they would make a formidable force against the MICC and incessant warfare. Which is why each side is encouraged to distrust and even hate the other, i.e. the “radical left” is told the right is racist and reactionary and the “unpatriotic right” is told the left is woke, arrogant, and un-American.
The MICC and “Deep State” know that these two groups must be kept divided. They must never be allowed to cooperate in meaningful ways.
5. Ike said only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry could tame and reduce the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the MICC. Note how Ike said nothing about the left or right. Being for democracy, freedom, and liberty isn’t a right or left issue. The same applies to being against war and killing and massively wasteful military budgets. These are human issues that should unite everyone irrespective of political allegiances.
Caveat: Any foolishness written above is on account of the heat, but fortunately I’ve been told global warming is a Chinese hoax. Stay cool, everyone.
Extractive capitalism is the economic model for the United States.
We’ve been living through a brutal experiment of how much work and wealth can be extracted from the working- and middle classes and funneled upward before the former are exhausted. The same brutal experiment is being inflicted on Mother Earth: how much lithium, gold, fossil fuels, strategic metals and minerals, even drinking water can be commodified and extracted before the earth itself is exhausted.
It’s a gusher up, trickle down system where almost all the profit is absorbed by corporations and the oligarchs. It’s a system we’re told that’s inevitable—the best possible system, the most efficient, market-driven, a reflection of the “genius” of men like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. And it is indeed a reflection of those men—and their boundless greed.
It’s truly amazing how much wealth is being extracted from workers. The tax code targets wages more than capital gains. Inflation (gas, groceries, and other essentials) cuts into largely fixed incomes. Health care costs continue to rise and are the leading cause of personal bankruptcies. Higher education often leads to onerous student debt that cannot be discharged through personal bankruptcy. Workers are bombarded with ads to bet money on sports using apps on their phones. Lottery tickets are everywhere, selling the dream of a financial windfall at very long odds. Expensive prescription drugs are sold as a solution to excessive weight and even to addiction to other drugs such as opioids.
The term “debt slavery” describes the status of many Americans; they own so little, not their houses (assuming they can afford one), not their cars and trucks, in some cases not even their furniture.
Productive capitalism is possible. So too is a “share the wealth” system centered on communal health rather than the greed of billionaires. But we are fed constant BS that “lifestyles of the rich and famous” are what we should all aspire toward.
How long a top-heavy system of extractive capitalism can last before it collapses under the weight of its own greed and waste is an experiment we’re currently conducting. What will come after the collapse is unknown.
To me, it seems the idea of a social contract is dead. America’s oligarchs and corporations are driven by profit margins, and workers’ jobs are being ruthlessly curtailed or eliminated in the process. AI is being pushed largely to make salaried employees redundant. Who needs people when machines can perform the same function, even if the machines are limited and only as reliable as their (faulty) programming?
Corporations say they exist to maximize shareholder value. Billionaires say they deserve all the money they can extract because they are the “makers” and creators (the rest of us, of course, are takers and drones). They owe us (the little people) nothing, so they say, and if we complain, we are told to work harder toward the American dream, even if it takes three jobs, none of which may provide health care benefits.
Small wonder that the American people want a different system; small wonder we are so heavily propagandized against anything that smacks of “communism” or even democratic socialism.
It’s laughable that Trump and Company sell communism (!) as a leading threat to America when it’s so obviously extractive capitalism that threatens to bury us. Meanwhile, extractive capitalism is protected (and accelerated) by unbridled U.S. militarism as the Pentagon’s budget soars to $1.5 trillion (or higher) in FY2027.
A militant extractive system is very good for a few at the expense of a great many. I suppose this is why my dad warned me that “the rich get richer and the poor poorer” and that tough times were ahead that might rival his experience of surviving the Great Depression in the 1930s.
I don’t know if it’s too late to change course. Whether we’ve already hit the iceberg and are just fighting over the lifeboats as the ship of state goes down remains to be seen. America, I like to think, still has the potential to rally. What is so deeply frustrating is that we’re being led by rogues and villains who seek to keep us in steerage even as they dance in the ballroom.
And when the ship finally slips beneath the waves, they won’t be onboard, dressed in their best while waiting for their demise. They will be long gone, motoring away on their luxury yachts.
Note to Readers: The short essay below represents a joint effort of the Eisenhower Media Network, or EMN, an organization of former military and government officials who seek a wiser course for America and a more peaceful world. I’ve been a member since EMN’s founding.
In Common Sense, Thomas Paine challenged Americans to question an institution that had long seemed beyond challenge. He wrote, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.” Two hundred and fifty years later, those words apply just as well to America’s defense budget. What has become accepted through habit is neither sustainable nor accountable. Only the American people can change it.
The “defense of custom” now comes from the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address. Years earlier, in his famous “Cross of Iron” speech, Eisenhower observed: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed… Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
More than seventy years later, Eisenhower’s warning has become reality. The United States spends more on its military than the next eight countries combined, most of them allies, while millions of Americans struggle with the costs of health care, child care, education, and housing.
The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex thrives by portraying every international challenge as justification for ever-larger Pentagon budgets. Defense contractors finance political campaigns and employ armies of lobbyists who help shape the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Taxpayer dollars then flow back into executive compensation, shareholder dividends, stock buybacks, and continued political influence, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that rewards corporate profits rather than national security. Even maintenance contracts are often structured so that only the original contractor can repair the equipment, locking taxpayers into decades of additional costs. The troubled F-35 fighter program—billions over budget, years behind schedule, and only partially mission capable—has become a symbol of this dysfunction.
An Air Force general described the F-35 (top) as a Ferrari, meaning it’s ultra-expensive, less than reliable, and overall less effective than the two F-16s also shown in the photo (Official AF photo)
Yet despite these enormous expenditures, America’s recent military record raises serious questions about whether ever-increasing budgets produce better outcomes. Since World War II, the United States has rarely achieved the political objectives it set out to accomplish in major conflicts, despite possessing the world’s largest military establishment and one of the most geographically secure nations on Earth.
Even more troubling, the Pentagon remains unable to account for how it spends taxpayer money. It has repeatedly failed the financial audits required by law, something every other federal department has managed to complete. Nevertheless, it is now requesting a budget approaching $1.5 trillion. Asking taxpayers to approve such an increase before explaining where previous funding went reflects a level of fiscal irresponsibility that would be unacceptable anywhere else in government—or in any American household.
Thomas Paine understood that institutions derive their power not only from force but from unquestioned assumptions. Britain’s empire appeared invincible in 1776 until Americans decided its authority no longer deserved their consent. Today, questioning the continual expansion of military spending may seem equally unfashionable, but history reminds us that accepted practices are not always wise ones.
A $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget represents more than $9,000 per taxpayer. As America marks its 250th anniversary, we should ask whether endless increases in military spending truly make us more secure, or whether they come at the expense of the investments that strengthen our nation at home. The courage required today is not to defeat an empire abroad, but to confront the entrenched interests of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex and reclaim a government that serves the American people rather than the economics of perpetual war.
In July 1776, courageous colonists came together to declare their independence from the perceived tyranny of King George III. “Rebels” like Thomas Jefferson urged the colonists to start down a new path, one of independence from the Crown, one that put life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness before fealty to a king. It was a long-shot effort, but the rebels somehow pulled it off.
Today, America has a new “king.” It’s the national security state, with all its threat inflation, its wars, and its appetite for more, always more. Combine that with President Trump and self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and their reckless pursuit of war irrespective of the Constitution and of international law, let alone Christian concepts of morality, and you have a form of tyranny that Americans must declare their independence from.
So, consistent with Jefferson, we need a new American revolution, or if you prefer a restoration of the republic, one that recognizes that immense imperial militaries are corrosive to democracy and individual liberty.
2026 can be a new 1776 if America rejects the tyranny of war and ever-higher Pentagon spending. America needs new sons and daughters of liberty, committed to diplomacy and peace, as fostered in a true participatory democracy that puts the needs of U.S. citizens first.
America’s Founders knew that persistent war is a most insidious and pernicious enemy to our freedoms. America today is a structure infested by the termites of war. If we fail to get rid of them, our house will collapse in a pile of dust.
Since 1776, many patriotic Americans have warned of the dangers of persistent warfare and steroidal military spending. Perhaps most famously, President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 spoke of the immense waste of weapons spending: how humanity would crucify itself on a cross of iron if wars endured and war budgets kept rising. He spoke again in 1961 of how America’s military-industrial complex was threatening the fundamental freedoms and liberty of Americans, especially if that complex was allowed to spread and grow. Ike’s warning went unheeded as America fought disastrous and unnecessary wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere.
Ike came to recognize the astonishing waste and dangers of militarism and war. So should we all. Let us on our nation’s 250th birthday declare our independence from persistent and pernicious militarism and warfare.
Bracing Views 